Should You Be on Every Social Media Platform for Your Business?
It's tempting for businesses, especially small businesses, to want to be everywhere at once when it comes to social media. After all, more presence equals more opportunities to engage with customers and promote your brand—right?
Not necessarily.
Sure, social media is a cheap and effective way to connect with potential and current customers. It allows you to show the human side of your business, build trust, and establish credibility. But more than just being present, any solid social media strategy plan requires active engagement. Your engagement will suffer if you're stretched too thin trying to maintain a presence on every platform. And that can harm your business.
Think about it this way: It's better to have an engaged presence on two or three platforms than a passive presence on five or six.
In this article, we'll explain why businesses should focus their social media efforts on a few platforms and offer guidance on choosing the right ones for your business.
Table of Contents
Why is Being on All Social Media Platforms Bad for Business?
Taking a "throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" approach to social media rarely works. When you try to be everywhere at once, you:
Risk of becoming invisible - The average person spends more than two hours on social media every day. Different social media platforms have different demographics, so it's important to consider where your target audience spends their time. Trying to be on every platform means you're spread too thin, which makes it difficult to stand out and be visible on any of them.
Look desperate - You want potential customers to see you as a credible authority in your industry—not a company that's just grasping at straws, trying to be everything to everyone.
Waste time and resources - Maintaining an active presence on every social media platform takes time and money. You must create quality content, interact with other users, and monitor activity across your channels. That's a lot to manage, and it's not sustainable in the long run.
So what's the solution? Should businesses just give up on social media altogether? Of course not!
Social media is still an incredibly powerful marketing tool—you just need to use it strategically.
Why Limiting Yourself to a Few Social Media Platforms Makes Sense
Narrowing your focus to a few social media platforms has several advantages, including:
Improved engagement - When you're not trying to be everywhere at once, you can put your energy into creating quality content and interacting with users on the platforms where you have the most visibility. This leads to better engagement and more meaningful relationships with potential and current customers.
More efficient use of resources - Focusing your social media efforts also allows you to be more efficient with your time and money. Not only do you have more time to create quality content, but you can also reuse that content across multiple platforms. This maximizes your investment and ensures your social media presence is as strong as possible.
More significant ROI - When you're strategic about the social media platforms you use, you're more likely to see a positive return on your investment. That's because you can focus your resources on the channels most likely to generate leads and sales for your business.
Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms
Now that we've covered some advantages of limiting your social media presence to a few platforms, let's look at how you can determine which ones are right for your business.
You might be wondering which platforms to use. Here's a list of the most popular ones:
Instagram: the best for visual content
Pinterest: for visual and textual content
Facebook: great for connecting with friends, family, and business colleagues
LinkedIn: the type of content that should be posted is written and video content of lessons learned, updates from your job/profession, mentor advice, knowledge of upgrading your life, and anything that brings a connection to you and your business.
Tiktok: Personal and business brands should find unique ways to give value in their industry with fun and friendly ideas relevant to world events, money, and wealth for a TikTok-friendly format.
YouTube: great for video content. The video's title should be about significant problems in your industry that people are constantly searching for.
You can also choose from several other social media sites based on your niche or interests, such as YouTube or TikTok.
The most important thing is to choose the platforms that will best fit your business and the kind of content you want to share.
Once you’ve chosen your platforms, it’s time to get started! You can either start by creating a new account or using an existing account that you currently have. If you don't have any social media accounts set up yet, you must consider how these platforms will fit into your marketing strategy. The first step is figuring out where your customers are spending their time online and making sure that they're able to find you on those sites as well.
Here are four key factors to consider before you decide which platforms to use:
1. What are your business goals?
Whether you're looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales, your goals should guide your platform selection. For example, if you're focused on generating leads, LinkedIn would be a better choice than Instagram.
2. Where is your target audience?
Knowing where your target audience hangs out online is critical. If they're not using a particular social media platform, there's no reason for your business to be there. For example, a B2B company that sells products to other businesses probably won't find much success on Snapchat.
3. What kind of content will you create?
The content you create will dictate which social media platforms you should use. Different social media platforms lend themselves well to different types of content. For example, if you plan on sharing a lot of visuals, like infographics and photos, Instagram and Pinterest would be good choices.
4. What resources can you commit to?
Some social media platforms require more resources than others.
For example, Snapchat and Instagram Stories require you to create regular, timely content. Using those platforms doesn't make sense if you don't have the manpower to keep up with that demand. Other platforms, like LinkedIn, are better suited for businesses that want to create long-form content, like articles and whitepapers.
Final Thought
Hopefully, this article has given you some food for thought about how many social media platforms your business should be on.
Never lose sight of your goals, know where your target audience hangs out online, create content suited to each platform, and be realistic about the resources you can commit. By doing these things, you'll be able to create a social media strategy that generates leads, sales, and brand awareness for your business. And that's what it's all about—not just being on social media for the sake of it!